


Stay, Illusion

by Tsukimi (starbox)



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: (but twisted soulmates), (only slightly though), Angst, Ciel will come around someday Lizzy, Future Fic, Gen, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, light fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-30
Updated: 2014-08-30
Packaged: 2018-02-15 11:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2226717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starbox/pseuds/Tsukimi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ciel is fifteen and nobody's fool. So he resents the fact that Sebastian has appeared to age in everyone's eyes but his own. There is definitely something that his butler isn't telling him. When Ciel forces a confrontation though, he realizes he isn't prepared for what the demon admits. </p><p>Sometimes fairytales are best left alone, but sometimes they need to be shattered.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This one has been sitting on my computer in one form or another for a while now, but a confluence of feelings this week in connection to the manga and the anime have forced me to publish.

“Why don’t you look like you’ve aged, Sebastian?” asked Ciel one morning, over his tea and newspaper. 

“Would you like me to, my lord?” the demon inquired with his usual, faintly amused smile.

“Answer the question.” 

Ciel put down his teacup with an audible clink. 

“Perhaps I have developed human vanity due to my surroundings.”

Ciel rolled his eyes. 

“I realized you look older to the other staff after Finny’s comment last night,” he stated sharply. “And I assume it’s the same with Lizzy, Soma, and the outside world, yes?”

“Yes.”

“So you only look the same to me?”

The demon poured Ciel more tea and offered him the sugar bowl with an unwavering gloved hand.

“Dammit, Sebastian. Answer me,” demanded Ciel, waving away the sugar. His visible eye looked stern and he crossed his arms. 

“Is this an order, my lord? You haven’t given me one in quite some time...” 

“You really don’t want me to know then, do you?” 

Sebastian simply picked up Ciel’s empty plate, placed it on the rolling tea cart, and began collecting crumbs in his hand with a small brush.

“Fine. Have it your way,” Ciel said after a moment.

He stood up and took a step toward his butler. Sebastian straightened to look at him. When Ciel had turned fifteen, he had shot up like a climbing rose, and his sharp nose nearly reached Sebastian’s chin. 

“But I will find out.” 

With that, Ciel left for the stables. Sebastian bowed after him, hand on his chest where his heart should be. 

 

 

After having Finny saddle the grey Arabian, Ciel rode all the way to Lizzy’s mansion at a fast canter. One of her gardeners greeted him by some newly trimmed hedges. 

“Do you know if Miss Midford is at home?” 

“I believe so, my lord. But I’ll go and have someone check.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Ciel said with a tip of his hat.

The gardener ran off and Ciel dismounted on his own before any more servants spotted him.A few minutes later a junior footman walked out briskly and said he would be very happy to see the Earl of Phantomhive to the front hall. 

Ciel was handing his hat to a servant when Lizzy rushed down the grand staircase. Ciel smiled slightly at her hurry and the way her lavender satin rustled frantically. 

“Ciel, darling! Has something happened?” 

“No, no. Just... Do you have a little time?”

Lizzy nodded emphatically. “I have to be in town for another dress fitting, but until then...”

Ciel looked at her closely. “A dress fitting? But you had your spring wardrobe finished last week.”

Lizzy turned away and gestured at him to follow her to the parlor. “Mm-hm, it’s for my cousin’s wedding...” 

Ciel clenched his jaw slightly. _Of course. Yet another blasted wedding._

“Oh, I see,” he said, his voice shifting toward a monotone. 

“Ciel, dear, don’t worry about it,” she said without looking at him. 

_As usual she’s reading half my mind--seeing the better of my thoughts and leaving the rest alone._

She sat down on the right side of the window seat that faced the gardens and he sat down on the other end. 

“What is it?” she asked. “You look a little peaked. Or something...”

“It’s...” Ciel said. _It’s Sebastian. He’s keeping something from me and I wish he wouldn’t._

“I have a friend...” he began again. _A friend? What a trite word..._

“A companion, of sorts, who is keeping a secret from me. I want him to just tell me of his own accord. But I do want him to tell me soon... now.”

Lizzy frowned slightly. “Prince Soma...? But he never keeps anything from you.”

“Lizzy!”

“Oh, someone else?”

“It doesn’t matter who!”

She smiled. “It couldn’t be a woman...”

Ciel stood up quickly and her smile vanished. 

“I’m sorry, Ciel! I was just joking. It doesn’t matter who.”

“It’s not a woman, stupid,” he said sullenly. 

She grabbed his hand and pulled him back to the window seat.

“I’m sorry, my love. I’ll listen.”

Ciel heaved a sigh and stroked her hand as it rested in his.

“I suspect he thinks it’s for my own good or some such rot. Doesn’t trust me to know what’s best for me, that sort of thing.” 

“I’m sure he doesn’t look down on you.But perhaps you’re right, maybe he has a reason.”

“He probably _thinks_ he has a good reason but...”

“Is he older than you?” Lizzy asked hesitantly. 

Ciel paused a moment, but eventually answered: “Yes.”

“So there is the possibility that he does know better?”

“I suppose... But I see no gain in keeping this to himself. So why would he? And I hate the uncertainty of it.”

“So this feels like a betrayal of your relationship?” Lizzy half asked, half stated.

“Yes, I suppose you could say so. Yes. He knows nearly everything there is to know about me. And after...” _After all these years._ “I feel like I don’t know as much about him. And I don’t think it’s fair.”

“Have you asked him things like this before and received answers?”

Ciel frowned in thought. “Sort of.”

_\- You read at night?_

_\- Yes, my lord. I have no use for sleep._

_\- But you have use for books?You realize they are stories by humans? Your prey?_

_\- One should always know more about one’s prey._

“He always speaks in shades of truth. I have to be very specific if I want him to answer a question. And I dislike that.”  

“But he does answer you?” queried Lizzy.

“Yes. And sometimes he can be more forthcoming than one might expect.”

_\- How do stories help... Of course! People’s dreams and fears and delights! You need to know what they are so you can twist them to your purposes._

_\- Sometimes._

_\- But you do, don’t you?_

_\- I have in the past._

“Maybe you aren’t asking the right question, Ciel,” Lizzy said brightly. “Maybe he’s trying to tell you something in his own way.”

“You think so?” 

_\- What kind of moral would the writers make of our horrible tale, eh, Sebastian? Pursuing revenge through destruction that’s fueled by greed..._

_\- And I see a bit more than that._

_\- Well, you always were a romantic, weren’t you, demon?_

_\- Oh, I never said it was anything worth seeing, my lord._

“If you really care that much, he’ll eventually understand that and come around,” she continued. 

“Maybe...” _Maybe never._

“Ciel,” Lizzy said slowly. “Don’t let the unsaid things get in the way of your relationship.”

Ciel blinked at her in understanding. “Lizzy... I--”

“Shh.” She put a finger on his lips. “I love you, Ciel. I always will.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek, her lips cool on his skin. “No matter what happens.”

“I...” His chin dropped to his chest, his back curving involuntarily. She moved closer and guided his head to her shoulder. 

“It’s alright, darling...”

Ciel hated lavender satin. You can always tell when it’s been wet. 


	2. Chapter 2

Ciel rode beside Lizzy’s carriage until they reached the main road. Then he waved goodbye to her smiling face and turned back toward the Phantomhive estate. 

When he made it back, he ran into Finny carefully damaging more of the estate's plants, and asked him where Sebastian was. 

“I think he's in the kitchen! He ordered a bunch of raspberries for you!” Finny stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his feet. 

Finny was completely right.  _For once,_ thought Ciel, despite knowing that it was a cruel thought to have. 

He peered into the kitchen and saw Sebastian standing with his hands on his hips in a moment of thought. Ciel held his breath.  _He’s never still like this..._  

A second later, Sebastian glanced at the doorway and smiled. Ciel frowned in return and stepped into the kitchen. 

“You heard me, didn’t you? Somehow...”

“Yes,” he replied and wiped his slightly floury hands on his apron. “I apologize for my appearance, my lord. Let me retrieve--”

“Stop it. Don’t move,” commanded Ciel. “It’s fine. It’s just...” Ciel clenched his fists--and then unclenched them when he realized he was doing so. “It’s only me, Sebastian. It’s just me!”

Sebastian froze and, for the briefest of moments, something akin to confusion appeared on his face. Then his usual smile was back and he bowed slightly. 

“I’m all ears, my lord.”

“Why are you playing the role halfway? Why this _concern_ , now, and yet you appear ageless?” 

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. 

“You act the perfect butler--you  _are_  the perfect butler--all the time. Around others, around the staff, even around me. And yet though you are aging to the rest of the world, you don’t age for me. You should do it right, all the way. Unless... you’re hiding something.”

“My lord, I will never lie to you. And I will never harm you.”

“I know that! But why this halfway charade?”

“Why does it worry you so much?” Sebastian asked after a moment. He was watching Ciel with that intensity he usually reserved for the unfortunates he interrogated. 

“Because it makes me feel like I’m missing something. Like you know something about which you don’t need to inform me--that it doesn’t  _matter_  if I don’t know.” He swallowed painfully.

Both of Sebastian’s eyebrows shot up quickly and his smile deepened.  

Ciel felt ill.  _This is the worst day ever._  

“That’s not what I meant--”

“May I speak frankly, my lord?” 

Ciel nodded and leaned as surreptitiously as he could on the kitchen table. But Sebastian noticed anyway.

“Shall we go to the library?” he asked, holding out an arm.

“No, I’m fine.”

Sebastian sighed lightly. “It was all a bit easier when you were ten and weighed as much as a bird.”

Ciel smiled grimly. “Yes and no...”

The demon’s smile widened in mirth. “You’re right. As much as I appreciated being able to whisk you about on my shoulders, your ability to defend yourself against human threats has wonderfully improved. The kidnappings were becoming tedious.”

“How much do you think I liked them?” countered Ciel. “And being mistaken for a girl! All the bastards who... ugh.” He shivered a little.

“True. But you were so lovely in your little shirts and soft winter coats,” said Sebastian. His voice seemed mocking, but Ciel was surprised to see that his eyes weren’t laughing. 

“What? Have I suddenly become boring?” he said.

The demon shook his head, but all he said was: “I have permission to speak freely?”

“Yes. But when do you not?” Ciel huffed. 

Sebastian bowed once more and removed his apron to hang it on the back of a wooden chair. He turned to face Ciel and crossed his arms, reverting to a pose he used when he had tutored his master.

“You know that you are the world to me,” began Sebastian, holding up a hand at Ciel’s sputtering.  “I want your soul and therefore I have perched on your back all these years. This is still true.”

He paused, and then reaching out with his left hand he pulled at the bow on Ciel’s eyepatch. It loosened and fell. He held the eyepatch in his hand for a moment, rubbed a thumb over its smooth surface, and then tossed it on the table. 

“But I find myself at a crossroads, Ciel.” He smiled as the young man started slightly at his first name on the demon’s lips. 

“You see, though I have been with other humans--so, so many, and with some for much longer--I’ve never been with someone as young as you. When I lived alongside old men or middle-aged women, people didn’t tend to notice  _my_  age. They didn’t notice me at all. I was an adult in an adult world, and more than that, I was a shadow in the background. A family lawyer, an illicit lover, a favorite dance instructor. But with you, I was not your equal. I was an adult in a child’s world. A guardian, a teacher, a caretaker, dare I say, a guide. And this, I now realize, has complicated my relationship with you in a way that I never foresaw.”

Ciel had settled onto the chair with the apron hung on the back. He rested his arms on the chairback, his chin on his arms.     

“But we have a contract...” he said, his voice coming out weaker than he wanted. “Though we never speak of it anymore, I haven’t forgotten.”

Sebastian looked at him with what had to be a fond smile. Ciel frowned, and his eyes narrowed symmetrically in a way they only could around the demon.  

“You still have that of yourself in you,” Sebastian said, and licked his upper lip in the slightest of movements. 

“But what I’m come to realize is that you’re a part of me as well. You are who you are because of me, not just because I saved your life that night. And it is that which makes me...  _ponder_  the next step in our relationship.”

“What does this have to do with not aging?” was all Ciel could say.

“I age to the rest of the world because you said when you were little that we must keep up appearances. That we must seem real. I don’t age in front of you because we are real, I am real, like this, right now. This is how I’ve always been to you. Granted, sometimes I don’t look quite like  _this..._ ” Sebastian gestured vaguely at his white shirt and well-brushed hair. “Sometimes my eyes and claws have an unsettling way of reminding even me of who I really am. But this, how I look to you now, is part of the illusion. And I don’t know whether to keep it that way or settle in for something more akin to reality.”

“What do you mean?” Ciel asked, though he had an aching feeling he already knew what the demon meant. 

“I will have your soul. But I am beginning to think that revenge may have nothing to do with it.”

“We’ve missed them, haven’t we?” asked Ciel, voice cracking. “All this work for the Queen... the Shinigami, the undead...”

“We have accomplished much. You have lived up to the Phantomhive name.”

Ciel looked unconvinced.  

The demon leaned toward Ciel. “You’ve also destroyed many lives with my power. You will continue to do so until the day you die. But...” 

Sebastian sank to his knee, his hand on his chest. Ciel looked down at him, remembering all the times and places in which he had done so.  _Too many to count._

_“_ It is likely that you will never truly attain the revenge you seek. For that, I apologize,” said the demon, russet eyes focused on Ciel’s blue and violet ones.

“If you do not have your revenge, the contract will not deliver your soul to me. But I still want it, Ciel. In fact, I want your soul more than ever. Because there is a part of myself in there, and I don’t want anyone else to have it.”

Sebastian gave the young man a wry smile. “I am selfish by nature. Why do you think you never grew out of it?”

Ciel’s mouth opened but no words came out. 

“If I age in your eyes, the spell is broken. It means that we have no expectations of finishing this as we had planned. It means I am no longer in a role, that this is no longer a game. It means I am more than a tool of vengeance, and you are more than a long-awaited reward. Is that what you want?” 

Ciel tried to stand. He did so shakily.

“So there’s no chance of...?”

“Not to my knowledge. I am truly sorry.”  

“Shut up!” yelled Ciel, hand lashing out at Sebastian’s upturned face. “You aren’t sorry! You can’t be! You...  _can’t_...” He looked into Sebastian’s darkening eyes and, for the first time in many years, he was afraid of what he saw.

“But I am,” said the demon very quietly.

It was the way his voice almost wavered that made the words feel like a punch in the stomach. Ciel felt his insides melting and swirling together, like he was dissolving and losing himself.  _Losing myself? Even that’s a horrible joke! I’ve been raised by a demon._

_Who am I? Ciel, Earl of Phantomhive,_ he recited to himself. _The Queen’s Guard-dog. One of the dark nobles; the strongest of the underworld; the hand of justice from whose reach none can escape._

_What am I? And the one answering that question had always been the same. “Fascinating,” he says with a bright smile. “Proud,” he lectures me. “Weak,” his smirk suggests. “Mine,” his scarlet eyes affirm._

Ciel backed away from the demon who was still on his knees.  _The whole world is falling away and all I have to hold onto are tenuous black feathers--all I can see are the wings of a fairytale monster. But I’ve been hiding under those wings for years, thinking that my eyes were open._

“My lord?”

Ciel turned on his heel and ran down the ever empty hallways to his room. 


	3. Chapter 3

Ciel opened his eyes. Night had fallen outside his bedroom window. He was lying on his bed, his body curved away from the door, in, what he realized, was the light of a single taper.

“Sebastian?”

Ciel sat up and looked over his right shoulder. Sure enough, a shadow by the door shifted, and Sebastian appeared at the edge of the bed. He smiled, without effort, and Ciel scowled back in kind.  

“I apologize, my lord, for disturbing you with my thoughts. We shall never discuss it again.”

Ciel swung his legs over the side of the bed and realized that the demon must have taken his boots off while he was asleep. Sebastian kneeled and began adjusting Ciel’s left sock. The young man looked down at the dark-haired head and sharp shoulders. The demon’s hands moved to his right ankle.  _This was how it had always been._

Sebastian stood, retrieved Ciel’s boots, and knelt once more to slip them on. Ciel placed a hand on Sebastian’s shoulder for balance and the demon felt steady to the point of immovable.  _We’ve come to work well together._

He stood and Sebastian followed in order to rearrange his clothing. The strong hands in their conspicuously white gloves were quick and gentle, and in a few minutes Ciel looked as neat as he had ever been. Sebastian moved behind him to retie the bow on his eyepatch. The demon was obsessed with making sure that one ribbon in particular looked perfect. Ciel almost smiled.  _Why fix what isn’t broken?_  

_And yet..._ Those words sounded over and over in Ciel’s brain.  _All the reasons in the world for continuing our pattern unchanged, and yet... Sebastian was a demon, and yet... I have never wanted normalcy, and yet..._

Despite just waking up, Ciel suddenly felt weary. His shoulders sagged and he swayed. He felt Sebastian’s hands on his upper arms, the demon's chest against his back. He knew his butler was about to say something (probably about dinner), and spat “Shut up, I’m thinking!” 

The demon stilled. Displeased, Ciel sensed, but in a mood to be patient. 

_Do I value him as I should?_ he mused.  _At first, I demanded the impossible and waited to see him fail me like everyone else_.  _Then, as the years past, and I realized his power, I began to question his sanity. Why would a creature this unstoppable and intelligent willingly wait on a child day and night? How greedy can he be? How much of a masochist? What is he willing to do in order to stave off boredom?_

_I always thought his attention to perfection was just a quirk of his character, as well as obedience to my orders. And I, in childish solipsism, assumed that my soul was equal to a lifetime of the most difficult servitude. But was it really a butler’s aestheticism that made him read whole tomes on my illnesses?  Was it really that which prompted him to teach me to waltz and to be a better gentleman? That led him to cover my eyes in the face of a wretched murder by my relative?_

_What is it that I’m so afraid of? Change? That's never been the case before. And what is worse? A child’s make-believe that becomes reality? Or a changing existence that is forced to continue playacting?_

_No. I know why I feel such self-loathing._

“We aren’t family. We aren’t friends,” he whispered. “I don’t know what we are.”

The demon leaned in, pale face close.

“When I’m not annoyed or angry at you, or hate you... Even then, I’m not sure that I like you.”

The traitorous words left his mouth as quietly as possible: “But don’t leave me.” 

The demon sighed once and then pulled Ciel around to face him. Ciel looked up into his familiar eyes and Sebastian’s grip on his still-slender arms tightened almost painfully. 

“I will always ever be at your side,” the demon promised once more. “I will hear your last heartbeat and feel your last breath. I will hold you as you slip into death. Then at the moment of your passing, I will attempt to take what is mine.”

Ciel swallowed, his throat dry.

“The contract is not dissolved, but it no longer benefits me,” Sebastian continued. “Unfortunately, I have no grounds on which to revise it, or make a new one.” 

“Why tell me this? Why not let things stay as they are?”

Sebastian grinned, fangs visible. “I cannot lie to you, and you were so very demanding about my looks.” 

After a moment, Ciel asked, “What do you look like to them?”

The demon blinked, and then with the tiniest of smiles his face sort of shimmered and restabilized. He looked much the same, but his skin was less pearlescent, his eyes a bit less bright--less russet, more brown--and he had tiny lines on his face, at his eyes and the corners of his mouth. 

Ciel reached out gingerly and traced the ones near his eyes. 

“Are these your smile lines?” he asked incredulously. 

The demon smiled one of his brightest smiles, his eyes nearly closed, to demonstrate. “Yes. Apparently that’s what happens to a human face over time.”

Ciel nodded. “My father was too young to have these...” 

“You won’t have to worry about smile lines, though, will you?” said the demon, poking a finger at Ciel’s cheek. 

Ciel batted his hand away.  

Sebastian gave him a nearly fond look and Ciel’s stomach jumped. 

“I’m not sure I like your human face, Sebastian.”

Something in the demon’s eyes cooled and then vanished.

“But I like knowing that you put thought into it,” Ciel added. “Perfect as always.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

The demon stepped back, his face once more as it had always been.

But that  _something_  had not returned to Sebastian’s eyes. Ciel wasn’t sure why, but he felt its loss acutely. So he closed the space between them, and taking the demon’s left hand in his, he pulled the white glove off. The deep russet eyes were once more guarded, but they widened as Ciel held Sebastian’s contract-marked hand to his rapidly beating heart.  _My soul is in there somewhere, I suppose..._  


“I don’t know what we are, Sebastian, but I know that this is yours. Or will be, one day. A Phantomhive never breaks his word. Even if this makes me a fool in your eyes, it just makes me human in mine. And that’s what you desire anyway, my humanity.”

Sebastian was oddly quiet.

“My whole life has been revenge, on the whole world. And you've made that possible,” Ciel laughed. “So I give this to you, Sebastian, to take when I die.”

Ciel stared defiantly into the now blood-red eyes. He could feel an unfamiliar, crooked smile on his own face. 

“You can't be rid of me that easily,” the young man told the demon.

Sebastian shook his head, lips quirked, emotions that Ciel did not have enough practice to identify churning across his features. He pulled back his hand, allowing his fingers to brush Ciel’s smaller ones in passing, and put on his glove.

“The young master is surprisingly mature today. I only hope it lasts,” he said in his lightest voice.  

“Fine, I understand, the moment’s passed. But don’t patronize me,” shot back Ciel. 

“Yes, my lord,” the demon said, eyes warm again. 

Ciel headed for the door, with the demon, like a shadow, a few steps behind him. 

 

** _My young lord, though you are tangled in foolish promises and walking in a waking dream, I will follow you anywhere._ **

** _For are we not the most enchanting fairytale, you and I?_ **

 


End file.
